Eco-ELT for Environmental Sustainability: Ecocritical Academic Writing for Cultivating Ethical Relational Value to Nature

Academic writing about nature has increasingly been recognized as a means of fostering students’ environmental awareness in English language education. However, its potential to cultivate relational ethical values, moral principles that emphasize reciprocal, meaningful relationships between humans and the natural environment, remains underexplored, resulting in a lack of models for nature-based writing that prepare students to become responsible, sustainability-minded citizens. Addressing this gap, the present study investigates the impact of ecocritical English academic writing on students’ relational ethical values within the framework of Eco-ELT instruction. A convergent mixed-methods design was employed, involving 20 university students who participated in an ecocritical academic writing project as part of an English academic writing course conducted over two 120-minute sessions. The instructional framework incorporated four key elements: setting, participants, approach, and subject. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through pre-test, post-test, and delayed-test surveys, open-ended questionnaires, and observation of students’ written work. These data were analyzed using compared means, growth, and content analyses. Both quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that students developed a greater awareness of the interdependence among natural elements and were able to articulate five perceived rights of animals and plants: the right to survive, live freely, express their beauty, be acknowledged, and be respected. The activities also appeared to strengthen students’ sense of responsibility as environmental stewards and their recognition of the intrinsic value of nonhuman beings in maintaining ecological balance. In conclusion, ecocritical English academic writing shows promise in supporting the cultivation of students’ relational ethical values toward nature. This study supports the integration of an ecocritical writing framework into academic writing instruction as a way to encourage environmental sustainability values, while acknowledging that further research is needed to confirm and expand these findings.